Cuba's Castro: I quit as party chief 5 years ago

FILE - In this Sept. 28, 2010, file photo, Cuba's leader Fidel Castro delivers a speech during the 50th anniversary of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, CDR, in Havana, Cuba. Castro said Tuesday, March 22, 2011, he resigned five years ago from all his official positions, including head of Cuba's Communist Party, a position he was thought to still hold. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano, File)
— AP

FILE - In this Sept. 28, 2010, file photo, Cuba's leader Fidel Castro delivers a speech during the 50th anniversary of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, CDR, in Havana, Cuba. Castro said Tuesday, March 22, 2011, he resigned five years ago from all his official positions, including head of Cuba's Communist Party, a position he was thought to still hold. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano, File)
/ AP

FILE - In this Aug. 7, 2010 file photo, Fidel Castro attends a special session of parliament in his first official government appearance in front of lawmakers in four years in Havana, Cuba. Castro said Tuesday, March 22, 2011, he resigned five years ago from all his official positions, including head of Cuba's Communist Party, a position he was thought to still hold. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano, File)— AP

FILE - In this Aug. 7, 2010 file photo, Fidel Castro attends a special session of parliament in his first official government appearance in front of lawmakers in four years in Havana, Cuba. Castro said Tuesday, March 22, 2011, he resigned five years ago from all his official positions, including head of Cuba's Communist Party, a position he was thought to still hold. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano, File)
/ AP

HAVANA 
Fidel Castro's surprise announcement that he stepped down as head of the Communist Party five years ago - despite widespread belief he remained in charge - marks the bizarre end of an era for a nation, and a man, whose fates have been intertwined for more than half a century.

The 84-year-old revolutionary icon made the revelation Tuesday - with word of the resignation thrown in as an aside halfway through an opinion piece that otherwise focused on President Barack Obama.

The declaration raises fundamental questions about just how much power Fidel has been wielding behind the scenes since his 2006 illness, and to what extent his 79-year-old brother has had freedom to make his own decisions as he pushed the country to enact sweeping economic reforms.

It also gives the Castros an opportunity to tap a possible future successor with their naming of a new party No. 2 - one without their famous last name.

They might select from a cadre of younger leaders who could carry the fiscal changes forward, and perhaps even reboot relations with the United States. Alternatively, the brothers could look to the past by promoting a loyal-but-weathered veteran of the revolution that brought them to power in 1959.

The answer will likely become apparent through a high-level game of musical chairs that Fidel's departure will engender in the upper reaches of the Communist Party hierarchy during a crucial Communist Party Congress next month.

In Tuesday's opinion piece, Castro said that when he got sick in 2006, "I resigned without hesitation from my state and political positions, including first secretary of the party ... and I never tried to exercise those roles again."

He said that even when his health began to improve, he stayed out of state and party affairs "even though everyone, affectionately, continued to refer to me by the same titles."

In the opinion piece, Fidel indicated that, with or without formal titles, he will always be an intellectual force in the revolution, a refrain he has uttered several times in recent years.

"I remain and will remain as I have promised: a soldier of ideas, as long as I can think and breathe," he writes.

The article, which was published on the state-run Cubadebate website overnight and in newspapers Tuesday morning, caught many people by surprise.

"It's incredible. Nobody can believe it," said Magaly Delgado, a 72-year-old Havana retiree who was clutching a copy of Granma, the Communist Party daily. "I always thought he was still in charge. ... He never said he had resigned."

The Cuban government had no immediate comment on the revelation, which appeared to tweak history. Fidel stepped down in 2006 due to a serious illness that almost killed him. In an official proclamation released on July 31, 2006, he provisionally delegated most of his official duties to his brother - including the presidency and head of the party.

In February 2008 he announced he was officially stepping down as president, and Raul Castro was formally picked to succeed him by the country's parliament a few days later. But no reference was made to Fidel leaving his party post, and Cuban officials and ordinary people have referred to him as the party leader ever since.